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Friday was the second day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei and Tom Verhoeven sensei seminar. Henry Kono sensei opened the day with the morning session showing us different exercises to show the balance between uke and nage, and how to work with this balance without disrupting the attention, focus and movement of uke violently.
The first afternoon session was by Tom Verhoeven sensei. After several shiho nages we did some combinations (from ikkyo to kote gaeshi to sankyo to shiho nage) and we finnished this session with some jo suburi.
The second afternoon session was by Alan Ruddock sensei. He focused on the throwing direction in Aikido. He explained that from a movement point of view it is quite strange to do a technique in such a manner that uke is forced into a full stop to eventually fall (backwards or not) into the direction that he came from in the first place when it is also possible to do the technique in such a manner that uke would fall in the direction that he was originally going (and thus wasnot disrupted that much).

In the evening our regular class, not part of our seminar took part. We practised severl forms of koshi nage. (I personnaly dont like the shiho nage like form of koshi nage, but then again aikido is not about me liking the techniques anyway). We concluded with some Aiki kempo.

On thursday the first day of the Henry Kono sensei, Alan Ruddock sensei and Tom Verhoeven sensei seminar at our club started. Having to pick up Henry Kono sensei from the Airport I missed the first morning sesion by Alan Ruddock sensei. The first afternoon sesion was by Tom Verhoeven sensei and emphasised on a lot of technical skill. Hard work and lots of sweat. The second afternoon sesion was by Henry Kono sensei. First we had a focus on dropping your weight when being uke and after that we examined the movements that arise from the interaction of nage and uke. Henry Kono sensei's lessons focus on (very advanced) principles. It was a nice first day with lots of people.

Being a good ok means riding the fine line between attacking to strongly and being to nice.
Somehow attacking strongly for a lot of people seems to mean that they have to attack full force and speed (and thus are no longer able to handle the breakfalling part of ukemi). How to learn people that a good attack is one that follows through. Most bad attacks you get are from people that hold back, change the speed midway or change the direction of the atack to a deliberate miss. In unarmed practise it sucks and is quite enoying, they dont offer anything to work with. But with weapons I fear these partners. Quite often the safety within the exercises lies within the certainty about what your partner is doing. I have been hit more often by people that tried to miss me than I have been hit by people that (within the context of the exercise) realy tried to wack me.